User fees for Canadian Forces’ disaster relief? Um, no

It is understandable and necessary that the Canadian Forces trim their sails to suit economic circumstances, just as other federal departments are doing. But it is ludicrous – not to mention politically untenable and wrong – to suggest that the military should begin “charging” Canadian municipalities, provinces and other government departments for its services. What planet can the Department of Defence’s administrative gnomes be on?

Think of it: Thanks to the wonderful facility of the Royal Canadian Air Force’s four gigantic C-17 transports, Ottawa can send the Disaster Assistance Response Team to Haiti – or anywhere, virtually – on 24 hours’ notice, no questions asked. But Canadian victims of natural disaster should get in line – cash, cheque or credit card in hand. Let’s zip past the customary Peter MacKay F-35 reference, and get to the nub: This is one budget efficiency, confirmed by Postmedia’s Lee Berthiaume in a story Tuesday, that won’t stand. Nor should it.

Anyone who follows the ups and downs of the Canadian military will remember the “decade of darkness,” in the 1990s, when the Jean Chretien-led Liberals gutted the Canadian Forces’ funding in the service of defeating the federal deficit. In the immediate aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall, with peace apparently breaking out all over, the military was an obvious place to find big savings. In 1995 the annual defence budget bottomed out at $12.5-billion.

Attitudes changed abruptly after 9/11. By 2005, following a series of sharp annual increases, DND’s budget was back up to $16-billion. Under the Harper Conservatives, beginning in 2006, the trend continued apace. By 2011, DND’s annual allocation was about $23-billion – about 10 per cent of total program spending. That was still modest in terms of the ratio of spending to GDP – below 1.5 per cent, in line with Brazil and well below Australia. But for the Canadian military, it was a cornucopia.

Here’s the interesting thing about the surge: If it caused grumbling on the Left, it was muted. Of course, Canada was at war: With Canadian soldiers fighting and dying in Afghanistan and reservists from communities across the country engaged in the effort, there was little room in the public mind for anything but support. At the same time, the CF’s service record suggests there was more to public support than overseas action. For years, soldiers have been ready-aye-ready whenever the people – here at home, I mean – required their help.

There are the highest- profile examples, of course – the Red River flood in 1997, when more than 8,000 troops were rushed to Manitoba to help combat the worst flooding in a century, or the great Eastern Ice Storm of 1998, when more than 15,000 soldiers were deployed. But there are also smaller, more “routine” missions of mercy: Operation ‘Lyre’ in July of 2011, to help with sandbagging in Souris, Man.; Operation ‘Lustre’ a month earlier, to help combat flooding on the Assiniboine River; Operation ‘Podium’, when the forces were called in to provide security support to the 2010 Winter Olympics; Operation ‘Peregrine,’ fighting fires in B.C. in the summer of 2003; or Operation ‘Plume,’ fighting fires in Alberta in 2002.

These examples are drawn from DND’s own website. But there are others: Canadian troops have routinely helped with security G8 and G20 summits, and helped battle localized floods or forest fires. Perhaps most infamously, the troops were called in by then Toronto mayor Mel Lastman in 1999 to help clean up after a storm that had been billed as the Storm of the Century, but turned out to be just a big dump of fluffy snow. I remember seeing lines of shovel-wielding reservists in my Toronto neighbourhood, and noting that none seemed particularly pleased with this duty.

The point is, though, they came when they were asked. They always do. That is a fundamental point of pride for the Canadian soldiers I know, and also part of the unwritten contract that links them with the broader population. I suspect, though I can’t prove, that one of the reasons Canadian soldiers garnered such powerful emotional support during the years of combat in Kandahar, was that so many people across Canada had seen the uniform previously in times of need, and instinctively embraced it as a result.

Now the military budget is once again in decline, with $2.5-billion in cuts under way. Be that as it may, does the brass really want to put itself in the position of demanding user fees from the people – taxpayers, that is – who already pay their soldiers’ salaries? How’s that likely to resonate public-relations-wise, given that Canadians, due to years of their exemplary work, now consider domestic crisis relief to be a core CF duty?

This is an idea for the trash bin. The sooner it is relegated there, the better.

I am a national political columnist for Postmedia News. My work appears in the National Post, on Canada.com, the Ottawa Citizen, Montreal Gazette, Calgary Herald, Edmonton Journal, Halifax Chronicle-Herald... read more and Vancouver Sun, among other publications. I write primarily about national politics and policy.View author's profile